Netflix is going to adopt this idea right now. It is going to be produced by either one of those comedy-type directors of Marvel cinematic universe Taika something Gunn or one of their frequent collaborators or siblings.
The story will spin around a bunch of college students who come from different lower to middle class background. There is a going to be Indian or Pakistani girl who came here to pursue higher studies. She is constantly ridiculed by the upper caste Indian students who are now part of the British elite class society. Then you have an Irish or some kind of GB region person who is also socially suffering. Then you have your usual group of social misfits. They share a common identity of being misfits of those times that is coincidentally representative of the times of present.
Then someone among them kills some elitist upper class royalty type accidentally who was trying to abuse that person. Ah yeah, this going to happen after a party where those misfits are going to dance in a certain way to certain music that they know will popular in TikTok. Then the group bands to together to come up with a serial killer identity to hide the crime. They don't kill people but the do things that make people there is serial killing going on.
Then you have your usual sheninigans. In season 1 a professor joins in their sheninigans who was relucatant. In season 1, finale the professor was almost caught. In season 2, someone actually kills and innocent person and does something drastic in the season finale. In season 3, the professor is killed and one of those misfits has near death experience. In season 4 Jack the ripper is introduced and season 6 part 1 finale Sherlock holmes makes an appearance. People petition RDJ to play sherlock holmes and the famous marvel alumni producer even drop a hint it might could be, but it ends not being RDJ but a random actor. But Jude law or the UK office guy makes a cameo in season 7. Then in after an abyssmal season 8 and the series ends in season 9, with Netflix says a spin off series is going to be launched in the metaverse platform that they recently acquired called Snap, which will attempt to provide an interactive detective and crime investigation experience platform that dynamically changes the TV show as the users participate.
You forgot to mention the horribly overblown regional accents to appease the US viewers (I.e. legible, but quirky), and you forgot to mention needless love triangle that only gets mention at the first and last episode of each season.
Plus the unrealistic portrayal of the lower class ("I'm poor, but let me shell out £100 for a haircut. Yes my car is falling apart, but this is a charming quirkiness of my character, not a severely debilitating financial problem I might need help on")
It's the opposite of what I and a lot of my schoolmates did when we were poor. You'd get a haircut from your mum or your girlfriend. You'd torrent the OED. Many poor people aren't idiots, they're often just caught in a unlucky situation without the time/resources to fight their way out of it. Same way that many rich people are lucky idiots.
I always assumed it was Hollywood, but I really had hard time understanding former coworkers English with indian accent, even people from some regions of my own country (Colombia) speak English but with the same accent they use for Spanish and makes it harder to understand, obviously is a non-problem for companies that do everything thought text messages on slack but some companies really love voice calls, I avoid those if possible.
I'm English and it's not just you. I have had particular trouble with English spoken with an Indian accent. I'm not entirely sure why but definitely part of it is the speed many Indians speak at, considerably faster than a native English speaker like me, and the very 'compressed' vowels from Urdu etc. which they naturally use when speaking English. It takes a bit of practice but you do get used to it.
Oddly, I did work with one Indian guy who had excellent, un-accented English. He spoke like he'd been brought up in London, but in fact he hadn't and English was the 2nd language.
In my experience it's the unaspirated plosives ("p", "t","k") at the beginnings of words; I watched a YouTube video recently where an Indian consistently pronounced "two" like "do." Maddening. That, and the lack of stressed syllables.
From what I recall, that’s how you say “two” in Sanskrit. And they reason they sound similar n the first place is that both English and Sanskrit descend from Proto Indo-European.
This might be a spelling accent. In Indian subcontinent languages you have to distinguish between t, th, d, and dh, so in roman script you expect the h to be there to represent aspiration. If you learn English from texts, from a teacher who learned it from texts, you become fluent without ever mastering the pronunciation. And I imagine it's a bit confusing if your ear is used to four distinctions instead of two.
In a similar vein, I listened to a Google video narrated by an employee whose presentation generally was excellent, but who pronounced "snippet" as though it were "snip pet". It was charming but distracting.
After a visit to the company office in India, one of my colleague told me that some of the Indians working there didn't understand each other in English... Maybe there's some exageration there, but that's just not you
Oh no! We don't know who killed beloved professor, Dr. Tots and his unethical student love interest, Lira Buckshire Dunningsworth, heir of Lord Cantishwayshire.
They had the perfect western european historical dispute contextual relationship going on. <I have no idea of western european conflicts but I am going to say the professor is Irish because IRA, and the student is daughter of a british lord because not-IRA>
Who killed them? Why would they even go to a shady part of London where crimes and prostitution happens. That doesn't make any sense. Also on the other hand Dr. Tots actor was a bitch to work with and there was allegations of how he treated atleast one underage actor badly.
Anyway who was the mysterious shadowy figure! Why did he kill them so randomly.
I have no clue who that is, but I would love to have Anthony Hopkins or one of those marvel villains like Ms./Captain Marvel or something to play that role.
You forgot the Nigerian/Ghanaian international student (with the heavily accented English no African actually speaks) who uses every minute of screentime to complain about slavery and white supremacy, whether they're asked or not.
BTW, I'm a Nigerian who's just sick of the focus on diversity vs. actually good actors.
They are really banking on the season 1 pre finale TikTok dance move.
In fact, they have sprinkled in dozens of "meme" reaction per season so they can have contract social media managers create 1,000 memes that they plan to distribute across reddit and instagram through power-repost-accounts.
In fact one of their crucial Gen-Z adoption metric is based on virality of those memes. For that metric they have a analytics contract with Reddit where Reddit has said they will provide only provide analytics information of the usage meme pictures and in no way they will push those memes are or corpo-moderate reddit threads around those memes. And also obviously the ad department is a separate department and has no influence on the analytics contract with Reddit.
Don't worry. It will be set in a Blackadder-ish England with at least one good and one bad person from each current ethnicity and gender. A poor, black lesbian can teach quantum mechanics at an Oxford college, even though it's 1288. Get with the times.
Taika's 2nd - the 3rd Thor movie and Gunn's 2nd - the 2nd Guardians movie was quite bad IMO. I think Marvel could do a better job by having directors who direct only one movie and quit. Taika is a good director but he is not a good "serial director". He is great with original ideas.
But Marvel being a serial franchise by the metric of average performance the Russo brothers are the most talented director(s).
Huh, I’d put both of those in the top ten, and Guardians 2 might be #1. Most of the others are kinda cinematically flat, and any time they have any kind of political themes (which is a lot of the time, actually!) it’s always frustrating because they don’t follow through (too risky, I guess?), which those two mostly avoid. Also, the pop music thing is kinda a cop-out, but damn, at least it’s better than almost-impossible-to-remember temp-music copycats in the rest.
I can see how someone who preferred the tone of the earlier films would dislike those two, though. I’m personally not thrilled that their influence has spread to the rest of the franchise as much as it has—just because that tone works well in some of them, doesn’t mean they should all be like that, and with so many films it’s much nicer to have more variety, but I guess the producers are following the money.
At least we can all agree Thor 2 is last. Thought I’d allow arguments for Avengers 2.
[edit] wait, Thor 3 or 4? 4 is the closest I’ve felt to the first time I watched Attack of the Clones, and it wasn’t even because of Natalie Portman. Yes, that one’s bad.
Let me pull up the literal map of fucking Marvel cinematic movie timeline to confirm that information..... screw that.
I am already at mental capacity with Agile terminology, 17 different cybersecurity concepts that might ruin my job and 5 different SQL dialects. I barely have the capacity to remember my youngest kid's name.
Thor 3 was a really fun film. It was the first to abandon the fake pretense that some of these marvel heroes are at risk of dying and instead have fun with goofy unfair fights. I think there’s a lot to be said for bringing that. As someone else said, I think you mean the 4th was the trash, which it was.
The article notes that records from that period are fragmentary at best, and the Oxford ones only cover 1296-1324 (fragmentary) and 1343-1348 (relatively complete).
Point of interest: Philosopher Thomas Hobbes taught at Oxford ~1600. He later wrote Leviathan, in which he characterized the natural state of humankind as "...and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, [...], nasty, brutish, and short."
One wonders whether the Oxford of ~1600 was much better than the Oxford of ~1300.
So we're living in the least violent times of human history, aren't we? The murder rates found in Oxford was higher than even the most violent contemporary American cities, and the conditions of some of our cities are absolutely tragic.
What's made the world so much more peaceful? Improved material conditions?
Violence was much more socially acceptable as a response to slights and insults.
Also living conditions were poor and urban populations were highly concentrated and lived in close quarters.
In universities specifically you had very high concentrations of socially highly privileged young men (generally they had legal immunity and could only be prosecuted by the church courts) with a lot of time and energy on their hands.
Because it means a whole percentage of the population never reaches adulthood in medieval times, they die in duels on perceived slights or are.. Strutting around as legally sanctioned murderers snarling at the commoners.
It’s simply way too easy to get caught nowadays. I don’t think there’s much more to it, honestly. Even if an individual makes a concerted effort to avoid technology (phone, computer, etc), the sprawling surveillance infra only encompasses more each day.
People may not have any particular 'impulse' to violence in a stable, safe society, but may be all too ready to participate in violence in a violent society. Society does not solely reflect the people in it, people also reflect the society they're in.
Probably a bit of everything. In addition to what the other comments have already mentioned, much higher alcohol consumption back then, feudalism, duelling and the honour-driven culture that led to it, and widespread availability of weapons:
> A Thursday night in 1298 saw an argument between students in an Oxford High Street tavern result in a mass street brawl with swords and battle-axes
…
> "Knives were omnipresent in medieval society," said Brown. Many cases feature a knife called a thwytel, later evolved to the word "whittle."
> "A thwytel was a small knife, often valued at one penny, and used as cutlery or for everyday tasks. Axes were commonplace in homes for cutting wood, and many men carried a staff," Brown continued. Some 12% of London's homicides were committed with a sword.
> What's made the world so much more peaceful? Improved material conditions?
Steven Pinker's 2011 book "The Better Angels of our Nature" is a detailed examination how less violent societies across the world have become, and the reasons for it.
If you like videos, here's a talk he gave on it [2].
And also most people are not drunk all the time. Clean drinking water was not really a thing till modern times in towns and I believe most people primarily drank some form of alcohol
> most people primarily drank some form of alcohol
The substitute for clean drinking water was "small beer", a brewed ale with about 2% alcohol. Much safer than drinking water from the pump; or, heaven forbid, from the River Thames, which in those days was even more of a sewer than it is now. You'd have to drink a lot of it to get drunk.
TFA describes a murder that happened in "the parish of St. Aldates". St. Aldates Street runs from the centre of Oxford downhill to the Thames at St. Ebbes. St. Ebbes itself was a slum; wealthy people wouldn't live next to a disease-ridden open sewer. The side-streets off St. Aldates are all narrow, dark mediaeval alleys.
Also alcohol in beer does nothing to 'clean' the water (how would that even make any sense?) it's the boiling that kills the bacteria, parasites etc. (and people have understood that boiling makes water safer for thousands of years if not more).
Because alcohol is toxic. This is also why there's a maximum alcohol concentration above which you need distillation: the alcohol kills off the yeast that makes it.
2% may not be enough kill off everything (I'd be surprised if it was), but in the absence of better training on my part (I'm not a biologist), I would assume it would still make a difference.
> I would assume it would still make a difference.
Alcohol and low pH might significantly slow down the risk of bacteria spreading. Which is relevant if you want to store.
Obviously it's not really that relevant if were talking about making the water safe to drink in the first place because boiling is much more effective.
And again the claim that medieval people drank beer all the time because all the water they had access to is dirty is a myth..
Ensuring access to clean water was something medieval people took very seriously with very severe punishments for those who polluted or tried poisoning sources of drinkable water.
Either the most violent or the least depending on how your gerrymander your sample.
Hypothesis: violence is effectively monopolised to a degree it has never been before. So it is used far less frequently but when it is used, is far more destructive (see world wars).
in the wild West it was acceptable to end a quarrel with a duel to the death, you still can but the survivor will probably get 20 to life in prison for murder, i mean I guess they could claim self defense but that's iffy since they put themselves in harms way...
The last duel was like early 1900s maybe end of the wild West era...
I'd wager longer lifespans (a consequence of improved material conditions) have made a big difference. Back in the day, you had a decent chance of dying fairly young anyway, so there wasn't as much disincentive to do stuff that might get you killed (such as crimes, revolutions, and other violent acts). Nowadays, in a developed nation, the cost of dying young is incredibly high as measured by years of life lost.
The likelihood of doing in your 20s or 30s (due to natural causes) was still relatively low. If you survived childhood expecting to live into your 50s was pretty reasonable.
Also this would seem like a highly nihilistic attitude hardly compatible with the social values of the day. I doubt this could’ve been a significant reason on a societal level.
I wouldn't even disagree with a lot of what's you're putting down, but it's not very relevant, no? Even if you believe that we've "outsourced violence" - and honestly I agree, it's all to easy to forget that a lot of our first world material conditions are predicated on cheap third world labor - there's still a difference between global exploitation, and stabbing a man to death over public urination.
It appears to me that, as brutal as it is to stab a man for exposing himself and dispersing his bodily fluids (not obviously sterile if he frequents brothels), it is far more uncivilized what we do: enslave children and exploit them until they drop like flies so we have the minerals necessary to upgrade our phone and greenwash our souls.
I mean are we seriously comparing the stabbing of a man who sexually exploits women, to the slow and painful death of a child that mines cobalt for our phones and EVs?
The George Floyd video, if it came out today, would by itself be proof of nothing. Journalists have to do a lot more fact-checking of video than they did a few years ago.
"even the most violent contemporary American cities, and the conditions of some of our cities are absolutely tragic."
I think there a little hint there that the OP doesnt think American cities are in their golden era.
As to my peace comment, it must be put in context of the precious statement that, as violent as our cities are, we have have achieved some pacification by exporting violence.
If the Congo-US city link is too abstract, consider American jails. They are brutally violent to the point where it is suspected male-male rape might be more prominent than male-female. All of our would be urban violence that we have warehoused in our jails occurs multiple fold in our jails.
If the US invaded Mexico, because Mexico would join a hypothetical military "defensive" alliance with Russia, does that put the blame on Russia or on the US? We already have the answer to this since something similar happened in the 60s which we call the Cuban Missile Crisis. The US almost invaded Cuba, did a total naval blockade that lasted 2 weeks, until Cuba surrendered and backed out of the alliance with Russia.
If the US invades a country for joining the CSTO, that's absolutely on the US.
It might be reasonable for the US to be frustrated or disturbed if Mexico joined the CSTO, but being frustrated and disturbed wouldn't justify invading them to replace their government.
That's exactly what I meant about Western "anti-imperialism" actually being pro-Russia. Mostly because it was literally invented by the USSR.
Ukraine was explicitly rejected last time they tried to join NATO. Although they will get in now, and so will Finland and Sweden, so it was obviously counterproductive!
But Russia doesn't even care about that. They're just ideologically opposed to Ukraine existing and want its industrial resources back. They don't even say it themselves, you just make excuses for them.
That would put the blame on the US because the US would have to have done something to provoke Mexico to want to join such an alliance.
As it stands, Mexico doesn't even bother with significant defense spending because they know that the US isn't all that interested in invading and no one else is going to try to invade a country which shares a land border with the US.
On the other hand, the various Russian neighbors who have joined or have expressed interest in joining NATO have done the same calculus and determined that Russia is cannot be relied on to not threaten their borders.
2. I didn't mention batteries. Cobalt is used in many components in EVs
3. Clearly my example was illustrative, generally, of the exploitation of children for mineral resources the country didn't use. The children in Congo is child exploitation writ large.
The kids in Congo are mining something for some application and for someone and that someone is us.
> Russia vs Ukraine
I think you misread my comment. I did not pass judgement at all on the war (on this comment at least). I was just pointing out that whether you take Kiev's numbers as true (450 000 dead Russians + 50 000 dead Ukrainians) or Moscow's (450 000 dead Ukrainians + 50 000 dead Russians) the number of dead is curiously the same.
Half a million dead souls in Donbas, no matter their nationality is a tragedy being comprehension.
I learned a lot from this wikipedia page, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who has read it (you posted it so that's evidence enough that you read the entire sordid article).
edit: I'm joking. It's full of funny stuff, the names they gave these streets and areas is hilarious. And, it feels creepy to read it, I'll be honest!
Paris and Bologna had lots of violent students too at that time. Villon, the poet, famously was a burglar and street brawler during and after his student days in Paris.
> There was an expectation on adult men that maintaining order was part of your social responsibility
This is pretty interesting. Imagine a society where you're the police, in fact everyone is the police.
I wonder when the thinking on this changed. It would be unthinkable these days to feel responsible for general public order as a private citizen. At best you'd report whatever the issue was and move on.
In London, I believe the first "professional" police force ("The Bow Street Runners") was created by the magistrate Henry Fielding, author of Tom Jones. That's in the early 1700s. I imagine the idea took some decades to spread across the country.
I think modern police evolved from multiple strands (especially depending on locality), but in the context of England, I think there's been a more or less continuous evolution.
The same idea that every adult man was responsible for maintaining order was the basis for night watch men duties, which was a duty that every household was supposed to partake in. Obviously, being a night watch man kind of sucks, so the combination of there being a law that compelled people to actually perform their responsibility, and that not everyone actually wanting to perform that responsibility (or really being fit for that responsibility) naturally led to people paying others to get out of duty... and here we go.
The more rural you get the more this is still true. In many places, there is no mentionable police force. You handle it or you get a group together to handle it.
> The mix of young male students and booze was often a powder keg for violence.
“culture of the times” was also in that mix, I bet they would have been quite murderous even without the booze. To my knowledge, a bunch of monks in a monastery are not so murderous.
Cluster a group of undisciplined, arrogant, wealthy, supremely entitled male egos, unsupervised in one smallish city and tell them they're the greatest - and what would you expect?
The article notes that the translation and documentation is a very manual process based solely on coroners' records.
It's more than likely that class structures at the time simply didn't record deaths of commoners, or else commoners may have simply dealt with such things within their own communities. Official bureaucratic systems of the time (for things that weren't related to extracting wealth) were part of the community of the elite.
The story will spin around a bunch of college students who come from different lower to middle class background. There is a going to be Indian or Pakistani girl who came here to pursue higher studies. She is constantly ridiculed by the upper caste Indian students who are now part of the British elite class society. Then you have an Irish or some kind of GB region person who is also socially suffering. Then you have your usual group of social misfits. They share a common identity of being misfits of those times that is coincidentally representative of the times of present.
Then someone among them kills some elitist upper class royalty type accidentally who was trying to abuse that person. Ah yeah, this going to happen after a party where those misfits are going to dance in a certain way to certain music that they know will popular in TikTok. Then the group bands to together to come up with a serial killer identity to hide the crime. They don't kill people but the do things that make people there is serial killing going on.
Then you have your usual sheninigans. In season 1 a professor joins in their sheninigans who was relucatant. In season 1, finale the professor was almost caught. In season 2, someone actually kills and innocent person and does something drastic in the season finale. In season 3, the professor is killed and one of those misfits has near death experience. In season 4 Jack the ripper is introduced and season 6 part 1 finale Sherlock holmes makes an appearance. People petition RDJ to play sherlock holmes and the famous marvel alumni producer even drop a hint it might could be, but it ends not being RDJ but a random actor. But Jude law or the UK office guy makes a cameo in season 7. Then in after an abyssmal season 8 and the series ends in season 9, with Netflix says a spin off series is going to be launched in the metaverse platform that they recently acquired called Snap, which will attempt to provide an interactive detective and crime investigation experience platform that dynamically changes the TV show as the users participate.